About GidiTraffic

Lending Each Other An Eye.

GidiTraffic is a social media service that leverages social media to provide real-time traffic updates and various pieces of useful information to road users, motorists and many other people on a daily basis. The service began operations on September 23 2011 using social media and technology to aggregate and share vehicular traffic data via the not-so-popular crowd-sourcing technique.

Pure and simple motives

The slogan “LENDING EACH OTHER AN EYE” lends itself to an ideology – bringing everybody together to make the world a better place. It talks about how sending a message that you feel is unimportant could be saving thousands of people miles away. Imagine you are walking by the road (or maybe just relaxing on your balcony) when you spot a traffic-related incident such as an accident, broken-down vehicle, robbery etc. You grab your device and tweet this at @Gidi_Traffic on Twitter. GidiTraffic sends out a warning (or heads-up) to thousands of people, telling them avoid the hotspots. Your “simple” tweet ends up saving people time and/or money!

GidiTraffic’s core competence is in vehicular traffic reports – however, the service also handles all other forms of traffic (which is the mutual exchange of information). It isn’t just an update service, though. It’s also an interactive forum where various inquiries are tendered and solutions gotten. Believe me, users ask the darnedest questions BUT always get useful responses. For example, a certain user once asked what the difference between “puff puff” and “buns” was. Trust me, he got lots of useful answers (try asking Google for that!).

Coming out

In the space of under one year, GidiTraffic has grown to becoming one of the most trusted and loved social media icons in Nigeria, even without a face attached to it. GidiTraffic has been referred to locally and internationally as the best use of social media ever, although the service is not yet officially recognized in Nigeria, its native territory.

Early in 2012, barely five months since its inception, the service received international recognition by being nominated for the Shorty Awards in New York – in the “Life-Saving Hero” category which has prior winners such as NASA, CNN and OccupyWallStreet. On this particular occasion, the FDNY (Fire Department of New York) emerged as the winner in that category, and commended GidiTraffic for being the first and only African ever in that category.

Rescue in the midst of tough times

GidiTraffic was the go-to icon so to say during the Occupy Nigeria campaign of January 2012 (a series of demonstrations held nationwide to protest the removal of subsidy on PMS). The service received live feeds of texts and pictures from various protest grounds, and posted them to all its users nationwide. GidiTraffic was also very handy in dousing rumours of violence and chaos which was the order of the day during that period, as users in such rumored areas sent pictures and messages to prove those rumours untrue.

GidiTraffic also provided info on various gas stations with their PMS prices as well as the locations of functioning ATM machines to all its users during the period – a great help to those who happened to be cash-strapped at the time.

There was also a particularly remarkable situation when a lady went into labour during the strike – her husband rushed her to different hospitals, but none admitted her because they were only catering to patients admitted before the strike period. New intakes like her were hence turned down. Her husband, panicked and not knowing what to do next, tweeted at @Gidi_Traffic and asked for help. Gidi_Traffic sent the word out – and a midwife living close by responded in a few minutes. They hooked up and this midwife eventually helped deliver the baby safely. The husband was elated and extremely grateful – people even joked that the baby should be named “Gidi Traffic”!

There were so many testimonies of people who got instant help and valuable responses just from sending a tweet to @Gidi_Traffic. GidiTraffic was a source of protection as it gave its users up to the minute information on happenings around their various neighbourhoods, from areas where protests turned violent to areas where hoodlums seized the opportunity to mount road blocks and rob innocent commuters.

Watchful eye

GidiTraffic is now an ‘EYE’ watching over the city. If anything goes down it gets reported to GidiTraffic first, who goes on to warn (or give heads-up) to all users to avoid the troubled spots as well as traffic-clustered routes. Unlike the police, who on getting any report of civil unrest or crime would move to quell the situation without any means of warning the people, with GidiTraffic there is still a window of time for more civilians to prevent them from heading unknowingly into any troubled zones.

GidiTraffic always says the best crime watchers aren’t the cops but are indeed you and I, the civilians. Crime doesn’t occur in police stations or police posts but always areas where there is no visible police presence.

Moving forward…

GidiTraffic intends to create a society where reporting crime is as easy as pushing a button or sending a tweet which works in real-time. Unlike the phone call that takes seconds to connect, coupled with hopes of not being placed on hold.

Its the social media age, where people would rather update their BBM status, Facebook status, or Twitter page about an ongoing crime rather than call the cops. Let’s harness this properly.

GidiTraffic says “If You See Something Tweet Something”….”LENDING EACH OTHER AN EYE” to make the world a better place…

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